


A Study in Variables

by rawquelicious



Category: Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: A rose by any other name, Brotherly Love, Christmas, F/M, First Crush, Headcanon, Q is a Holmes, Underaged!Q, christmas at the holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2012-11-28
Packaged: 2017-11-19 18:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawquelicious/pseuds/rawquelicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He doesn't quite know when they all began fighting for Mummy's affections, but has the distinct idea that it started before he was born and that he will never make up the lost time. He is the quiet one, overshadowed by three larger-than-life personalities, The Cold Mother, The Government and The Petulant Child. He doesn't mind it, quietness can do so much more than people give it credit for."<br/>In which Q has a long story of falling for dangerous people with secret identities and then showering them with affection in the form of exploding gadgets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in Variables

**Author's Note:**

> This story is unbeta-ed and unbritpicked because I literally started writing it two hours ago on Tumblr (sherlockisnotagirlsname, if you like that sort of thing).  
> If you catch grammar or spelling mistakes (they are bound to be out there), please report them back to me and I'll be eternally thankful.

It's the Christmas family dinner. Quentin has grown twelve inches during the past year, and his joints hurt like he's an old man, while his body seems to have been stretched by a medieval torture machine. He feels as if he is all made of elbows and knees, not fully in control of his members, his thin fingers now twice as long and clumsy in a way he hasn't been since he was two.

They sit on the Christmas table. 

This isn't quite true. The way it goes is more like this: the butler rings the bell for dinner. Quentin sighs and abandons his computer, in the middle of a transaction with a small country from the Middle East. Mummy doesn't like it when they're late. 

Mycroft is in the grand hall, talking to Mummy, a glass of brandy in one hand and his umbrella still on the other. Quentin doesn't know why the butler hasn't taken it yet, but he'll probably hear Mummy talk about it later. She does abhor having weapons inside the house. 

"Mycroft."

As always in the presence of his older brother, Quentin feels intensely uncomfortable, like a child who has wet himself and the floor while singing some sort of bawdy song. He cover his nervousness well, but it's the Holmes' family. Mycroft probably has an entire file on his mind about every single one of Quentin's tells(the small twitch on his left eye, the slight balancing on the balls of his feet, the tapping of the left thumb on his leg). In the end, he stands there as a soldier during the Queen's inspection, and doesn't smile at all when he thinks about what Sherlock would say of that. 

"You've grown, little brother."

Mycroft says it as if a personal offense that Quentin has committed against him, and for a moment he thinks of replying "Well, I'm sorry for growing up, Mycroft" but pettiness is best served on the likes of Sherlock. Quentin simply shrugs, because he knows that it annoys his brother and his mother in equal parts, and that's all the teenage rebellion he allows himself in the presence of others. 

"Mummy, shall we wait for Sherlock or go into the dinning room?" - Quentin says before Mycroft has a chance to, and on the corner of his eye he can see his older brother preening as if Quentin has stolen his place. 

He doesn't quite know when they all began fighting for Mummy's affections, but has the distinct idea that it started before he was born and that he will never make up the lost time. He is the quiet one, overshadowed by three larger-than-life personalities, The Cold Mother, The Government and The Petulant Child. He doesn't mind it, quietness can do so much more than people give it credit for.

Mother quietly nods, but takes Mycroft's arm when she stands. Quentin tries not to  smirk at the pettiness of it as he pushes his thick glasses up his nose. Mummy's games are always fun, and especially fun at Christmas.

They're halfway through the entrée when Sherlock shows up. He's a flurry of dramatic coat and cocaine. Edward, the butler, tries and fails to take the man's coat and scarf in a semi dignified way, left to pick them off the floor as Sherlock strides into the dinning room. Mycroft looks as if someone puked on his shoes. Mummy raises an well educated brow at her middle child. Quentin hides his smile by signaling Lucretia for another serving of foie gras.

"Merry Christmas, Mummy. I'm sorry for the tardiness." - Sherlock's voice is cold and polite as he bends to kiss Mother's cheek, but the twitch on his limbs and the state of his clothes denounce what he's high on. Quentin wonders idly what Mycroft's minions had to do to get his brother here only twenty minutes late. By looking at Sherlock's clothes, his hair, and the knuckles of his hands, he concludes that it took bribery, more drugs and eventually physical force.

"Well," - Mummy says, and Sherlock has the decency to look guilty even though his act isn't fooling anyone at the table - "At least you're here, darling."

It's been at least three years since Quentin has seen his brother sober, and he finds it difficult to miss it. A drugged Sherlock is one whose cracks are more evident, and that's where Quentin does his best work. Cracks.

"Quentin. You're tall." - Sherlock looks confused by this information as he takes his seat next to Mycroft without acknowledging him.

"Thank you Sherlock, so are you. Brilliant deduction work there." - Quentin says as a he takes a careful bite of duck liver with figs and it melts in his mouth.

He can never resist being a bit clever with Sherlock. He doesn't scare him the way Mycroft does, mostly because Sherlock is unpredictable chaos, a time bomb waiting to go off, and Quentin works well with bombs. His favorite hobby is making them explode.

"Ah, brilliant deduction work, you say?" - there we go, Quentin thinks, and the thrill of it makes his blood run faster because this is even better than Mummy's games, this is Quentin's game. - "You have grown twelve inches and a half since last Christmas, you are in the middle of writing your college applications and you're thinking... Cambridge next year."

"Sherlock, please, no deductions at dinner." - Mummy says quietly, but Sherlock is too high on drugs and on his own cleverness to listen to her. Mycroft sighs deeply and Quentin tries to look the right amount of embarrassed and nervous while his heartbeat goes up with excitement.

What is the point of doing things if you don't get caught? Or at least if you don't test yourself once in a while, put yourself in the danger line, try to see if you really are clever or just lucky...

Nothing could stop Sherlock now, and Quentin waits, fork half way to his mouth and heart beating in his eardrums.

"No, not Cambridge, Oxford. Following little Mycroft, are we? You still haven't applied though, so... You have a literature credit you have to do before you can get to college at fifteen, and you do want it bad or you wouldn't be reading Shakespeare's ghastly early plays. You have four Christmas presents, which is strange because there's only three of us and you wouldn't give anything to Father..." -Sherlock spits out the last word and now Quentin is really nervous because he didn't expect Sherlock to take this route. That's the problem with unpredictability. - "Necklace for Mummy, umbrella for Mycroft, scarf for me, boring boring boring..- But the other one, what is it Quentin, do you have a little crush? Do..."

"That is quite enough, Sherlock, thank you." - Mother raises her voice and everyone in the room falls silent. Poor Lucretia almost drops the platter of vegetables in sheer panic as Mother's loud voice echoes on the chandelier.

Quentin breathes again, for once thankful that his brothers answer to Mother as guard dogs to the owner's whistle. That must be why the woman talks so little, like certain spiders she must know that with great power comes great responsibility.

"You really don't understand the point of Christmas presents, do you Sherlock?" - Quentin says, putting the proper amount of hurt in his voice even though he is mainly feeling relief. 

Upstairs, in his computer, a transaction has probably already made and he has an obscene amount of money waiting on his bank account. Sherlock, like most self taught geniuses, tends to miss the forest for the trees. And even though Quentin would like his brother's ghostly hands off this particular tree, he certainly appreciates that neither Sherlock nor Mycroft have yet set fire to the forest.

"Yes, Sherlock, there is no need to ruin the surprise for everyone." - Mycroft doesn't lose the chance to chastise his brother, even though he probably knew what Quentin had bought even before he had done it. It's a lost battle, trying to exchange presents in the Holmes' household.

Dinner gradually goes from a small verbal quarrel to a full on shouting match between Sherlock and Mycroft. Mummy looks like she has an headache, Quentin laments the perfectly cooked fish no one is paying attention to. He is fighting an ongoing battle to fill up his treacherous body, but looks too much like Sherlock to hold up much hope on that.

His plan is late, but he tries not to worry. That's where he beats his brothers. Mycroft tries to destroy variables, Sherlock over analyses them, but Quentin works with them as if they were old friends.

At half past eight, twelve minutes late, Edward announces there is someone waiting on the foyer to see Mycroft. Like clockwork, this is precisely when Mycroft is red as a traffic light, yelling at Sherlock about cocaine and irresponsibility while Mother supervises Lucretia carving the turkey. Quietly, Quentin announces he is going to welcome the guest and nobody seems to hear him except for Edward, who looks very grateful that he is now allowed to leave the room.

The woman welcomes him with a small smile, barely looking up from her phone. Her brown hair falls around her face and she looks as professional as ever, even though small snowflakes are now melting in her clothes. For a moment, Quentin is self conscious of his age, his height, his unruly hair and clammy hands. He is painfully young as he walks to her and she looks up at him.

"Hello Mister Holmes." - she says, before her phone beeps loudly in distress and gets her attention again.

"Hello Miss..." - he always wait for the name, and still hasn't heard the same one twice.

"Persephone today." - her mouth quirks in amusement for the dramatics of it all. The shouting inside is reaching new, unexplored heights. - "Merry Christmas. I'm afraid I'll have to steal your older brother from the festivities."

The festivities have graduated into plate smashing and someone yelling about upseting Mummy. Persephone's smile doesn't change, nor does she appear to be the slightest bit sorry for interrupting. Quentin feels like his heart is trying to come up through his mouth, and every clumsy overgrown bone in his body is shivering and screaming at him to move. 

"Trouble at work?" - he says, as innocent as one can be.

"Yes... It seems as if business doesn't stop for Christmas in other parts of the world."

He would feel guilty about it, but, then again, both terrorists and British secret services will soon discover that the weapons bought don't actually exist, so he feels like it isn't that serious. It's a thin line between "important enough to bother Mycroft" and "absolute power corrupts absolutely", but Quentin has threaded that line carefully since he started to talk and has now mastered it completely.

"I-I have a present for you." - he inwardly winces at how young his voice sounds, how it breaks and at how far it falls from the security he intended to project. He does catch her by surprise, as her eyes fly from the phone to him and her mouth opens slightly. - "It's nothing, really."

His hands fumble a bit as he reaches in his pocket and gets a small package, regretfully wrapped. These new bigger hands haven't quite gotten the hang of wrapping paper yet, and the thing does look like a bit of a mess, but her eyes light up when she looks at him and he needs to straighten his glasses before his internal organs leap out of his skin. Her fingers lightly brush his when she takes it, and for a second he is deaf to the shouting match continuing next door because his heart is beating too loud for anything else to come through.

The small Blackberry falls into her hands.

"I did a few adjustments, to help with your job." - he wants to show her every cool thing he has done with it, every special alteration, every secret button or application, but he knows that would be a very boyish thing to do. So he just watches as she trades SIM cards and memory cards and the phone lights up, not nearly as much as her face. - "It's not really a phone anymore..."

He can't finish his sentence because she's kissing him. Quentin has never been kissed before, and it takes a moment before he gets the hang of it, realizes that this is his life, that he is being kissed by the most amazing woman he has even met. He places his hands on her waist and opens his mouth to let her kiss him properly, because there is no point in pretending that he won't let her lead him everywhere. Her hand is clasped on the back of his neck, pulling him down, and he moans when she pulls at his hair, making him shiver as she deepens the kiss. The Blackberry is clasped on her other hand, that holds the phone and his cardigan in a tight fist, pulling him closer. He is afraid things will get very awkward very soon, when she lets go of him, looking as nonplussed as ever.

"It c-can open doors and decrypt almost everything, and it explodes if you need that sort of thing but you really shouldn't be in the room when it does." - he is babbling now, fifteen and so, so uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the best of ways, with his lips tingling and tasting of honey and his pants embarrassingly tight.

She smiles sweetly and says,

"Thank you, Q."

Before giving him a slight peck on the lips.

He doesn't even understand how she moved so fast, but Mycroft is coming into the room now, and Persephone looks normal and efficient as ever, tapping away at her new phone. Quentin knows he looks utterly debauched by the way Mycroft's eyes dart between the two of them.

It's the first time in his life he has actually seen his older brother look confused and it's incredibly satisfying. 

"Mister Mycroft, the car is waiting." - Persephone says, her tone making it clear that she won't give her boss an opportunity to have a family talk at this point.

"Ah, yes." - it's delightful to see Mycroft confused, Quentin could have enjoyed it for a lifetime. - "Merry Christmas, little brother. I'm sorry I can't stay."

Quentin shrugs again, to show that it's not a problem and to see Mycroft's blood boil a little more. He is grinning way too much, but he feels like he couldn't stop even if he wanted to. He even waves to Mycroft at the door, and it may have been his imagination, but he thinks Persephone flashes him a secret smile.

He doesn't have time to analyse it because Sherlock is bumping against him on his hurry to put on his scarf and coat at the same time.

"Ah, Quentin, I'm sorry I have to dash. An anonymous source sent Lestrade a tip on that body they've been searching for. Do keep Mummy company, please. Mycroft made her terribly upset."

Sherlock is already out the door before Quentin can reply, but he smiles because even if Sherlock is an insufferable git, he still deserves a nice Christmas present. He would never stay long enough to open the scarf anyway.

And if, when Quentin is walking away bracing himself to face Mummy, Sherlock comes back so he can yell "Glad your crush liked it", and Quentin responds by giving him the finger while not even looking back...

Well, then only Edward will know it.


End file.
